A new era of zero tolerance to dictatorships in the Americas

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
february 20, 2018

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The humanitarian crisis to which the Castroist-Chavist dictatorship has taken the people from Venezuela is compelling the region’s and world’s governments to reflect on the importance to defend democracy. The accelerated and ruthless process to consolidate Maduro’s dictatorship has turned it into something undesirable, into something to be condemned, into something that is a threat to international peace and security. Only the regimes from Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador defend Maduro, while a new era of zero tolerance for dictatorships in the Americas gains strength.

Up to now in this century, but above it all after the drafting of the Interamerican Democratic Charter (Lima-Peru 11 September of 2001) most of the region’s governments allowed, assisted, or participated in the formation of 21^st Century Socialism or Castroist-Chavist dictatorships. Some by deed and some by omission, but almost all under the irresistible pressure of Venezuelan resources misappropriated by Hugo Chavez, the dealings of the Forum of Sao Paolo now unraveled through the Brazilian lava jato scandal, or the threat and fear machinations of Fidel Castro and his renewed capability to destabilize governments using Venezuela’s resources.

They toppled the governments of Argentina (2001), Bolivia (2003), Ecuador (2000 and 2005), and that of the OAS’ General Secretary (2004) and grossly misrepresented these as resignations, converted the Cuban dictatorship as a political reference, and then recognized it as having regional leadership. In the ten years of Insulza as the Secretary General, they allowed the shameful violation of the objectives and principles of the OAS to take place under pressure from Chavez and Castro.

They let themselves to be seduced or to be compelled to accept an organized crime system that has replaced politics, controlling power in Cuba with the Castro’s, in Venezuela with Chavez and Maduro, in Bolivia with Evo Morales, in Nicaragua with the Ortega’s, and it appears still yet in Ecuador with the Correa scheme, and influencing the small Caribbean or Petro-Caribe countries with oil handouts.

What is happening in Venezuela today is the result of almost two decades of progressive and sustained abuses to freedom and democracy, violation of human rights, persecutions, electoral fraud, corruption, violation of the sovereignty of the country, embezzlement and misappropriation of the nation’s resources, theft of government and private resources, institutional supplanting, assassinations, massacres, killing of the freedom of the press, elimination of the Rule of Law, disappearance of the separation and independence of the branches of government, control of the opposition, political prisoners and exiles, narcotics trafficking and all that may be necessary to make Venezuela a Castroist dictatorial “narco-state with a humanitarian crisis”.

Ignoring times and distances, it would appear that Cuba’s history of the sixties is being repeated. The dictatorship must be consolidated and therefore it; jails, represses, kills people, it generates a famine, and through fear and insecurity it causes the forced migration of those citizens that could have defied them. The thing here is that we are in the midst of the 21^st century with a vast technology and communications’ evolution, with the internet, social media, and citizens’ reporting in real time, that show the criminal and anti-national nature of the dictatorship that now oppresses Venezuelans. Compared to the Cuba of the sixties, the ideological falsehood, the liberation pretext, and the anti-imperialistic rhetoric are no longer convincing.

It is for the aforementioned reasons that Venezuela’s dictator Maduro has very few probabilities to sustain himself in the illegitimate power he holds. The international democratic community has understood that for the sake of their own interests and security, it must preclude Venezuela from turning into the second consolidated dictatorship of the Americas, and prevent the dictatorships of Bolivia and Nicaragua from following that path. Liberating Venezuela soon is a strategic necessity.

Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba has subjugated its people to a permanent humanitarian crisis, but now knows that will not be tolerated any longer. Evo Morales’ dictatorship has turned Bolivia into another narco-state who lags just a couple of chapters behind Venezuela’s script of crime and crisis. The Ortega’s dictatorship in Nicaragua with a model pro-bourgeoisie more along the lines of Somoza than Castro, has been uncovered. It has become clearer than ever that we have “two Americas”, one that is democratic and the other that is dictatorial, and those two Americas cannot co-exist. Now is the era of zero tolerance to dictatorships in the Americas.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Américas on Sunday February 18th, 2018

 

Translated from Spanish by: Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.